Posted on April 21, 2019
For a long time - more than three-quarters of a century - hemp products were illegal in the United States. Making hemp illegal was part of the "War on Drugs" because hemp is cannabis, the same as marijuana, aka pot.
BUT hemp is a breed or variety of cannabis that doesn't have the psychoactive effects of pot. You can smoke all the hemp in the universe and never get high!
Now, I personally think that there are a lot of problems with the War on Drugs, for many different reasons, but making industrial hemp off limits was particularly silly. Because hemp is something that can be used in clothing, cosmetics, biofuels, paper, plastics, and tens of thousands of products.
And hemp seeds are a superfood!
Also, and this is a BIG also: hemp helps the environment because it has especially long roots. Long roots help absorb metals in soil and feed microorganisms that keep the soil healthy.
Hemp can be grown in all kinds of soils (no need for artificial fertilizer), it's naturally resistant to pests (no need for pesticides), and it grows so tightly spaced that it is naturally resistant to weeds, too (no need for herbicides). It can be pulped with fewer chemicals than wood and is naturally bright so needs no chlorine bleach.
Some people would imagine that industrial hemp is a new idea - maybe a hippie-dippie idea - but in actual fact hemp is one of the earliest domesticated plants, in Ancient China, and it was one of the first plants grown by British settlers in North America, in Jamestown, Virginia. Hemp used to be commonly grown in the U.S. and has always been grown in many parts of the world.
Now that hemp is finally legal in the U.S. again, I hope that all hemp products are also approved.
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